


50 Shades of Wood

by itstonedme



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:56:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These vignettes are loosely based on chronological events presumed in Elijah's life.  Those of you who have followed his career will probably get more out of it because of your knowledge of his films and activities, the people he has worked and hung out with.  The title is inspired by <i>that</i> book, although any other similarities stop there, thank goodness.<br/>Originally posted on LJ <a href="http://itstonedme.livejournal.com/73405.html#cutid1">here</a> with reader comments.<br/>Disclaimer: This is fiction.<br/>Feedback: Valued more than you know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	50 Shades of Wood

1

She's dark-haired and petite, lips a tiny cupid's bow, and she blushes whenever she sees him watching her at the mall because he's Elijah Wood, you know, like, the movie star, the one in _Tiger Beat._ When the rest of her friends move on, she lingers at a storefront, gazing in the window at nothing important, only waiting to see if he'll make a move. 

And he does. Even though he's just thirteen, he knows how to make moves. He's been surrounded by some of Hollywood's studliest, learned the tricks first hand. He slips behind her, and he's taller which is just bonus. He slides his hands around her waist and presses against her back and her breath catches and he can feel the firmness of her ass against his jeans and it makes him hot and tingly, almost breathless, and he aches for her and 

he wakes up at the same time that he comes inside his pajamas.

He lays there for a moment. He knows _exactly_ what just happened; he doesn't have an older brother for nothing. It starts small, just a little smirk at the edges of his mouth, but then he's grinning like he's just discovered God. And maybe he has.

Even though he's Catholic, he's got to give it to the Jews for knowing something about being thirteen and becoming a man.

 

2

It's not that he doesn't want his mom on set watching him explore the insides of Christina's mouth. 

Well, maybe it is. 

But he knew the day would come when he'd have to lock lips with someone while an entire adult film crew stood by. He just didn't think it would be _this_ day. So he takes his cue, parks his chewing gum behind his ear and off he goes. It's not like he and Tina haven't been practising. 

Ang's a good guy. He manages to get the shot he wants in three takes.

When it's done, Elijah gives Tina a little smile, and she gives him one back, and his mom – his _mom_ – gives him another. 

And he swears that the next time he has to do this, he'll ask her nicely if maybe she can stay home.

 

3

Salma thinks he's adorable. 'Adorable' is the last thing he wants Salma Hayek to think when she talks to him. He's been jerking off to visions of the voluptuous Salma since they started filming.

"Tell me more about Roberto," he asks her, since this is her fourth collaboration with their director.

"Brilliant man!" she gushes, and she's off, a tumble of fluttering hands and embellished praises and Spanish. 

He's learned never to stare at a woman's breasts, but sometimes, he can't help himself, especially when they are Salma's and they are right fucking there in all their animated wholesomeness. What a joke, casting her as the school nurse. He knows what he'd like to nurse…

She catches him looking and stops talking. He glances up, swallowing hard against a dry throat, cheeks heating and eyes just about ready to pop. 

_Bury me now, God._

"You are so adorable," she grins, leaning forward to ruffle his hair, her squishy bosom looming closer. "I swear, I could eat you up."

"I'd like that," he blurts out.

Salma just winks.

 

4.

"Hey," Bijou says.

"Hey," he says back. Bijou's hot, even if she is a blonde.

"You were great in that alien movie."

" _Faculty,_ " Elijah tells her. 

"Right. So what's Josh Harnett like?"

Elijah's glad he never went to high school. Being a constant means to an end would have busted his balls.

 

5.

Once the alarm goes off (and Astin has phoned him, respectfully brief), Elijah knows he can't claim five more minutes of sleep because then he'll never get up. He curses into his pillow and forces himself to sit up, swing his feet over the side of the bed. It's still another hour to daybreak, but shooting starts at 7 am today, and there's feet and ears and wig and makeup and costume and lines, always lines. 

He sits there, eyes closed, brain fuzzy, and blindly reaches to click on the bedside lamp. For the ninety-seventh time (translation: days since he's been in New Zealand), he berates himself for staying up too late. His sits there, not moving, hearing only the ringing in his ears from too much music played too loudly just five hours before. Something itches, and he gives it a scratch. His hand stays there for a minute, and yup, he's got wood. 

Time to shower.

 

6

When Elijah first meets Viggo, it's on the set of Weathertop, and he knows Pete has finally, unreservedly, found his Aragorn. Elijah is blown so far out of the water by Viggo's preparedness, he has to bite down on all the self-doubts that come flooding in. Later that day, when Viggo talks to him in words that roll and tumble from his mouth like that waterfall in _A Walk On The Moon,_ he's blown away again by the sheer dudeness of the guy. He's been around a lot of A-list actors in his life, but he was a kid then. This is different. Elijah thinks he might have just found who he wants to be. The fact that he's crushing on the dude doesn't even factor in.

 

7.

“You _are_ a love,” Ian tells the costume assistant as she helps him down the trailer steps. He starts to say “I am forever indebted,” but from her grin he realizes he probably said that yesterday, more than likely the day before too. She leaves with a finger wave.

A noise draws his eye to the far end of the trailer where Elijah is standing alone in what has become his tobacco zone, shoulder against the aluminum siding and back to Ian. The ever-present fog of smoke locks him in.

It's unlike Elijah not to hail whenever either of them is coming or going. Even rarer is seeing him at day's end without his cohorts. “Done for the day?” Ian calls out.

Elijah rubs his face quickly and turns. “Yup, just about. Have a nice evening.” 

Ian looks off into the spring twilight. He doesn't need more than this mild dismissal to know that something is off. He walks over, and Elijah tosses his cigarette.

“Your friends run off on you?" Ian asks.

Red eyes turn up to him and Elijah laughs, embarrassed. “I told them I was going to turn in early." 

Few things touch Ian more than the sweet bravery of laughter through tears. He dips his head. “Has someone been hurtful then?” he asks, laying a hand on Elijah’s shoulder. “Has that Monaghan boy done something terrible? I will personally remove his tongue if he has, other parts if necessary." 

Elijah laughs again, but his breath hitches and he frowns, looking down.

Ian angles in closer. “Homesick perhaps?”

Elijah looks up, eyes pooling.

Ian reaches out and gathers him in. “Dearest boy,” he murmurs, and Elijah folds into the embrace, letting the rumble of Ian’s voice wash over his sadness.

 

8.

"Jaysus," Bean utters.

"Not at all surprising," Ian remarks.

"I'd do him," Dom says.

The object of their commentary stands just inside the doorway, kitted up in a red satin dress and heels, _Pulp Fiction_ bangs offsetting creamy skin and enormous kohled eyes. He's been handed a bottle of beer which he holds by the neck, hoping to dispel the notion that he's anything but a really straight guy in drag at a costume party. Yet there's the black slip strap that's slid from his shoulder and the hint of blush on his cheeks and the slash of scarlet rouging his lips, and when he sucks hard on his cigarette, there aren't twenty guys in the room who don't all consider what that could _really_ feel like.

 

9.

"Virgin or not?" Dom asks.

"Not."

"Who'd you lose it to, male or female?"

"Female! Jeez."

"Girl or woman?"

"Woman."

"Do tell," Billy says, leaning towards Elijah and moving his beer mat to one side so that his elbows have a place to call home.

"She was 31, I was 17."

"Blonde, brunette or ginger?" Dom asks.

"What does it feckin' matter?" Bill interrupts and turns back to Elijah. "Go on."

"The first one, I came in her hand. Next one, I came in her mouth. Third and fourth, were, you know, _inside."_

"Ah, seventeen," Billy reflects fondly.

"Arse or pussy?" Dom asks.

"Oh fer fuck's sake," Billy says, smacking the back of Dom's head. "Shut it."

"Both."

 

10\. 

Elijah's got his ridiculous song chirp going. _"'I'm too sexy for my looove, too sexy for my loooove, love's going to leave me.'"_

Serkis narrows his eyes through his cigarette cloud. "Cut it out before I toss you," he growls.

Billy's beer actually exits through his nose.

 

11.

"I love you." Elijah slithers against Dom, who nimbly removes the beer bottle Elijah's wielding, but all it does is free Elijah's hands and arms (and legs) so that he can molest Dom further with his best monster octopus hug. 

He's never had friendships like this, so open, so touchy feely. He wants to be English. This whole experience is just ace.

"You're drunk, my friend."

"Yeah, I am. Doesn't change the fact that I love you."

"Well, I love you too, Lij. Doesn't change the fact that you're drunk."

"Kiss me, Dom. I won't think less of you in the morning."

And so Dom does. 

 

12

Dom and a select part of Wellington first see Elijah's member one memorable night atop a city fountain.

Dom next sees it three weeks later when he and Elijah cross paths in the trailer's bathroom. "Hurry, mate," Dom whines, grimacing and bouncing in the doorway like he'll burst.

The third time Dom sees it, Elijah's sitting in the heat of his rented flat in his tidy whites. "Whoa, nice 'nads, brother," Dom says more out of curiosity than politeness.

"You think I need to get them checked?" Elijah asks with furrowed brows.

"Let's have a look."

And so Dom does.

 

13.

"Sean, I need to show you something."

Astin can tell by Elijah's face that something's bothering him. "Sure, what's up?"

"It's kinda private," Elijah whispers, angling his head towards the living room where Christine is playing with Alex. So they go down the hall to the bedroom, where Elijah drops trou. 

"Does it hurt?" Sean asks, face at Elijah's crotch. "Has it always been like that?"

"Yes to the last and no to the first."

"Get it checked," Sean tells him. "I'm sure it's nothing." 

But being Sean, he has an appointment booked for Elijah by dinner time.

And it ends up being nothing more than a conversational bullet in a magazine interview. As if the world didn't already know that Frodo had big balls.

 

14.

As soon as principal photography ends – even before the premiere of _Fellowship_ – he tells his agent that he needs something that casts him as an adult. She sends him the script for a gritty Boston drama.

"But married?" Dom comments after reading it.

"With a three year old son," Elijah replies.

"Mate, I don't know. You look like your wife's baby brother. Were you supposed to be fifteen when she got pregnant?"

"It's work," Elijah says pointedly and with more cruelty than he expects of himself.

It opens in two theatres, makes less than $5,000 and stinks like a dead dog's ass.

Picking film projects will never be his strong suit, but he doesn't care. He's out there, he's networking, he's engaged. In the World According to Viggo, it's all about keeping busy.

 

15.

By the time he arrives on the set of _Try Seventeen,_ he's got a few good cinematic snogs under his belt, including a tongue tussle with Brooke Shields. 

He's fucking freaked whenever he's around Debbie Harry despite the fact that she's way older than his mom and he's got to dry hump her. Because she's _Deborah fucking Harry,_ punk queen who ruled over CBGB's, one-time Playboy bunny! He sits soaking up her stories like a disciple before his swami, and she tells him that it's good he's cultivating an inclusive musical ear and he's really very sweet. He swears he has an endless worm winding through his brain from the first day of shooting to the wrap party, nothing but Blondie nuggets.

Of course, by the time the wrap party rolls around, _The Tide Is High_ is being crooned between the sheets in a German accent, and she's anything but blonde. 

 

16.

"I like you in those glasses," Franke tells him. "You should wear them more often."

"What, these?" Elijah laughs, fingering his Buddy Hollys. "I look like a knob."

Franke wraps her arms around his shoulders. She's got nearly three inches on him, and she's in her boots today so there's that. "No, _kätzchen,_ " she tells him. "You look sexy. You look smart. You look like you would know what to do with a woman."

"Is that right," Elijah smiles, wrapping his arms loosely around her waist, staring at her mouth. He loves it when she talks grown up to him. Because inside this seemingly teenage body he's got to wear for a while, that's how he sees the world.

 

17

Everyone wants to stroke his head. Caroline Rhea, his sister, Orlando, half the crew in Wellington when he arrives back there for the premiere of _The Two Towers._

"You look like Sinead," Dom tells him. "All eyes." 

"Thanks a fucking lot," Elijah replies.

Dom's already warbling _Nothing Compares 2 U._

Elijah doesn't regret shaving his hair, however. It's amazing what people invite him to rub his scalp up against now that he's shorn.

 

18

When he meets the cast of _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,_ he's fully cruising on _LOTR_ fumes.

He likes Kate. She's like an older sister. 

"I had to have been your age when I worked with Pete," she says, referring to her turn in _Heavenly Creatures._

"Pete's amazing."

"So how do you like being in the Billion Dollar Club?" she asks.

"It's changed my life," he replies.

"Mine too," she tells him. "But you've got to keep working. You don't want to become only known for something you did twenty years ago."

She's just nailed his greatest fear, becoming another Mark Hamill.

 

19

"What the fuck were you thinking?" Elijah laughs. "The two of us in a porn film with Jenna Jameson?"

"Sorry, brother, I forgot where I was." 

"I mean, it was an interview! They were filming us!"

Dom scrunches up his face mischieviously. "I know."

"You have to _know_ that the rumours about us are rampant."

"Rumours, Elijah?" Dom bats his eyes.

"Not, I repeat, _not_ in public." 

"Your voice broke when she said she loves younger men."

"I was so nervous. I mean, she's fucked hundreds, dude. All I could picture while we were talking was her mouth full of cock, taking it in the ass."

Dom makes little spastic moves. "Squirm, squirm, squirm. But she offered you lessons."

"Oh God," Elijah groans. 

 

20 

A week later, his appendix blows.

"We're taking him up to surgery right away," the emergency room doctor tells his mother and sister. "We've given him Demerol so that he'll be more comfortable."

He's wheeled through the corridors, all of it a myopic blur. "On a scale of one to ten, how is the pain?" he's asked as he's parked outside the operating theatre.

His head rolls towards the face that is probably addressing him. "Better. Maybe a seven. Not that I mind."

_Not that I mind??_

"Am I stoned?" he asks the face.

"The drug is helping," the nurse tells him. "We'll have you into surgery in just a few minutes."

All he can think about is his testicle. "Do you have to shave me?" he asks, and he's surprised he doesn't sound panicky.

"We don't do that anymore," she tells him. "We'll just paint you with an antiseptic."

"Oh God," he whispers.

 

21

Dom's been living at the back of the Wood house for the better part of a year when Elijah tells him, "I'm moving to New York with Hannah when she leaves next month."

"Is it because of me?" Dom asks, stricken.

Elijah won't lie, especially to his best friend. "Partly," he says. He loves Dom, but he'll be damned if he'll stand by watching him become another Kato Kaelin. And Elijah's worked too hard at distancing himself from the excesses of Hollywood to allow Dom to bring it into his home, into his _mother's_ home. Besides, Elijah needs to move out. He's 22, for fuck's sake. 

"I know you don't think you're ready for this, but we need some space to sort things out," Elijah says. "We're not the Beatles."

"What will I do?" Dom says more to himself. 

"You'll make it work," Elijah tells him.

"But we're good? I need to know we're still good." 

"We're more than good," Elijah smiles. "We'll always be more than good."

 

22

"Ian showed me this," Dom says, logging onto his lap top one afternoon at Elijah's. Elijah is back in California. So much for the New York state of mind.

"What the fuck!" Elijah laughs at the photoshopped picture of Astin and himself as Sam and Frodo, naked and embracing.

"Yeah, but wait for it," Dom says excitedly. "There are stories that go with it. By our fucking fans, Lij, about Frodo and Sam banging each other, and you and me, and me and Billy, and Ian and all of us, and Viggo and Orlando. As elves, men, hobbits and as actors, man. We're fucking like bunnies."

"Back up. Me and you?"

"Look," Dom says, clicking through a few pages before he settles on one and starts reading aloud. _"'Dom teases his fly open, watching Elijah. As he slides off his jeans, his cock bobs free, ripe and ready. Elijah's lips part, blue eyes flashing upwards. 'I want to taste you,' he slurs hungrily.'"_

"Duuude," Elijah grimaces. "Why with you? Why can't I be with Liv or Cate? And how come Orli gets Viggo?"

"It's gay fanfic," Dom says. "They call it slash. They even merge our names in sub fandoms, like Viggorli and Monaboyd and Domlijah. And the writers seem to be mainly women." 

" _'Fanfic, fandoms,'_ " Elijah smirks. "Look at you."

"But the bigger question is: What was Ian doing to discover it?"

"Maybe looking for luuuve," Elijah says. "And why is your name always first?"

"Obviously because I'm the porn star, and you guys are the ones usually taking it in the bum."

Elijah looks over Dom's shoulder. "How much of this stuff is there?"

"Tons," Dom says. "There's a whole world of it. And not just us. There's _Star Trek, X-Files_..."

"Wait," Elijah says, shaking his head, clearly distressed. "Kirk fucking Spock? No way. Just, no."

"While Uhura watches, yeah, yeah," Dom says excitedly. He turns, staring at Elijah with a devilish grin.

"Okay," Elijah finally says. "Send me the links."

 

23

_If not now, when?_

He knows that the ring he wears on his right hand, the one in Hebrew that Franke gave him, is the subject of innuendo, speculation that it is in fact from a gay lover daring him to come out. It's part of the territory of being small and pretty. 

There's that web site, the one with him in filmy shirts showing off his belly button, proclaiming that he's very, very gay.

Sala describing how comely he was in drag hasn't helped.

And the slash, good Christ, the slash.

"Take the piss, head 'em off at the pass," Dom tells him. "Embrace your inner gay boy."

"Easy for you to say," Elijah replies. "You're English. It's expected of you."

"What, like wearing a speedo?"

"Exaaaactly," Elijah says. "Jagger was bi, yet he nailed Bianca. Bowie was bi and he's with Iman."

"Ergo, you need a good arse reaming to get a stunning wife." 

"Ergo, it would help if you stopped implying I'm gay in every interview." 

He realizes his mistake the moment the words are out of his mouth because Dom's just gotten that twinkle he gets whenever he's been double-dog-dared. 

 

24

The hobbits take in a Manhattan strip club after yet another major film award evening in advance of the Oscar nominations. 

Who knew Billy could be such a lecherous bastard when surrounded by tits at eye level? He's milking the catnip of his Glaswegian skirl for all its worth. Elijah figures "Scores" is an appropriate a name for a strip club, especially after Billy climbs down from his table dance and heads to the VIP lounge for a little lap pleasure. "He shoots, he scores!" Elijah keeps drunkenly telling Dom.

"C'moooon," Dom begs him. "Let's go join Bills."

But all Elijah wants is to order drinks from the waitress who's getting him drunk, just to keep her coming back. She's a doll. Plus she's one of the few women in the place fully dressed.

"Can I call you sometime?" he finally asks once he has a) worked up the courage and b) gotten drunk enough.

"I'd like that," she replies, finding his gentlemanly ways and ascendant star power entirely refreshing. She writes down her phone number on a napkin.

By morning, however, common sense and a hangover prevail, and he tosses it.

 

25

The months from the release of _ROTK_ until the Oscars are one big drunken blur of post-award shows and parties.

Everyone in the cast is getting lots of nookie, that's for sure, from all quarters: gay, straight, older, younger. He's keeping it as real as he can because he's a monogamous type of guy and one-night stands aren't his thing. Ian understands this; he very gallantly steps in whenever he sees Elijah getting uncomfortable with yet another proposition. It's not uncommon for Ian to throw himself on the sword for Elijah if the propositioner is particularly sweet and gay. 

But Ian's not around when Elijah flies into New Orleans the week before the Academy Awards to head the Krewe of Bacchus.

The Friday night preceding Mardi Gras finds Elijah holding up the bar of some honky-tonk, ropes of beaded necklaces weighing him down. He's the calm of the human hurricane whirling around him, but by the other side of midnight, he realizes that the deep-fried pickles were a mistake, and he heads to the washroom to offload.

"I think we need to get you to bed," Karen, the carnival host who's been assigned to him, informs wisely upon his return.

Which she ably does. As he's lying on his hotel sheets, the room spinning, Karen's mouth sucking him off, he wonders what the rest of the guys are up to. _What would Dom think about this?_ he ponders, and he has to slap a hand over his mouth to keep from giggling.

 

26

The nookie marauders keep coming from all directions, none more so than the leap day evening of the 72nd Academy Awards. 

The cast all know that they will never again be part of anything as big as this. Eleven Oscars, tied for the record. Every category in which they were nominated. It's unbelievable. Elijah wishes Orlando were with them.

"Are you watching?" he shouts into his cell phone above the rumpus in the washroom of the Kodak Theatre right after the show ends.

"Yeah, yeah," Orlando replies wearily. It's coming up on dawn in Spain, sandwiched between two full days of shooting.

Dom's making grabby motions for the phone, but Elijah turns away. "We miss you, man," he says. "You would fucking love this." 

Orlando screws up his face. There's nowhere else he'd rather be. But one can't fuck off to Hollywood when Ridley Scott has made one the lead.

"We couldn't not call," Elijah says because, of all the Hobbits, he knows about shooting schedules. "You're here in spirit. Every drink tonight will start with a toast to you."

"Then drink up," Orlando laughs.

"And every fuck tonight will be in your honor!" Dom yells over Elijah's shoulder, who winces from the volume.

Across a few satellites and ground receivers, diamond clear, they hear Orlando begin to coyote howl like the idiot they know and love so well.

 

27

He's surprised it has taken this long.

He's at a bar with Dom and Billy, who have fucked off outside for a smoke. He's stayed behind because he's discovered a guy who's as passionate about Arcade Fire as he is. Elijah and this fellow are enthusing about _Funeral,_ what a genius Win Butler is, how hot Régine Chassagne is, blah, blah. One minute, they're parsing "Rebellion", the next minute the guy is reaching around him to get a bar mat, hand on the small of Elijah's back, crotch pressed lightly against Elijah's ass.

Elijah freezes.

"You know?" the guy says quietly. 

Elijah turns his head, just enough to get eye contact. "I think you've got it wrong, man." 

"Yeah?" the fellow replies. "You think so?"

"Oh I know," Elijah says, turning his whole body face on. The guy has at least four inches on him and about forty pounds. "I absolutely know."

"Okay," the fellow says, taking a step back. "My mistake."

"We're cool," Elijah replies.

If anything, he's unerringly polite with strangers. 

 

28

He's become a groupie. It starts in the Czech Republic and continues unabated throughout the summer of 2004. He's found love and he's found home, and they both might just happen to be on a tour bus.

Here's how it starts: "Do you mind if I tag along while you practice?" he asks Pam one day. 

"It's in a gym," she says.

"Cool," he replies. "I like gyms."

He could count on one hand the number of times he's been in one. 

She shows him how to do hand stands. 

He shows her his wonky gonad.

That's how it starts.

 

29

They spend the better part of three weeks travelling Eastern Europe in a rented car, staying in B&Bs. He likes her hard curves, the muscle on bone, the bronze polish of her skin, her spunk and ease with strangers. 

She reminds him of someone, maybe himself, but he doesn't delve into that too deeply. Instead, they play music, make music, explore the world and each other, and the more time they spend together, the more he knows he's falling in love.

 

30

That fall, while Pam tours the world with her band, he hangs with his sister, the Osbourne siblings, the crowd that gravitates around World Without Sundays. She and he text and talk a few times a week, but he's pulled back, reuniting with Dom and Billy over New Year's in Hawaii, happy to see Dom settled into success and romance. Of all the hobbits, he's the only one not in a committed relationship, although he's working on it.

"Do you love her?" Billy asks him.

Elijah squints. "I think I do," he says. "I mean, I miss her."

"Enjoy what you've got," Billy says. "You'll be like me. You'll settle later in life."

"Oh," Elijah replies without a beat. "That's a given."

 

31

Looking back, if he had to pick a post-Frodo film that garnered him street cred, it would be the 72-hour shoot he did for _Sin City_ in which he didn't utter a single word.

God bless, Roberto. He'd make movies with him all the time if he could.

The reviews are stellar, averaging out his post- _LOTR_ tomato meter a few notches higher after the dogs' breakfasts of films he's made in the last few years. He thinks "creepy" might be his favourite word. 

"Dude, Kevin!" he hears all that season. 

So long, Frodo, it's been good to know ya.

 

32

He sure knows how to treat a girl. 

By late winter, he calls his agent and says he wants some kind of gig in the Philippines. He's going to take Pam back to her family's roots, see it through her eyes.

During the next four years, he takes her to London for the premiere of one of his films, Venice for the film festival, New Orleans for Mardi Gras, Cannes, Santiago, Madrid, Paris, scores of concerts, award shows, festivals, fashion shows. 

She takes him around Europe on a bus with several dozen new friends.

They buy furniture and move in together. Well, as together as they can be when she's not travelling. They become bi-coastal during her off times, living at hers in New York and at his in Venice. When her band is on the road, he's with them more often than not. They fit, they feed off each other's energy. She's used to being one of the guys. That's what he loves about her.

Because he's all about being one of the guys.

 

33

He needs to learn to mind his mouth when the press are around. 

First, he blabbed about his mismatched balls. Now he's pissed off Jared Leto.

"Who made you music arbiter?" Jared says to him at an MTV award show. "Do you hear me publically trashing some of your shit films? Believe me, it would be easy."

"Sorry man," Elijah says, but even as it leaves his lips, he knows it's a little too light on apology and a little too heavy on insincerity to get the job done. And that's because he's defensive – stuff like this never happens to him – and because he and Jared have a bit of attitude from the days of _Black and White._

"The fuck?" he says to Pam when Jared leaves. "He just told me off." 

_The fuck?_ he's thinking a few seconds later when Leto puts him in a choke hold.

He brings it up again a few months later in an interview.

"Babe," Pam tells him. "Let it go."

 

34 

He loves being Pam's old man. When her band rolls into a city, that's all he is. It's like, "Oh yeah. Frodo. How's Pam?" Not former child actor, not Hollywood heart throb. He's just the dude attached to the hot chick who surfs the crowd on a bass drum. 

"Lower," she tells him, and he shifts down her thighs so that he can work the knots out of her stage-ravaged back. "That's it, right there."

He's attentive that way. He loves knowing every inch of her. That's what comes with being with someone for as long as he has. Every cuticle. Every bony growth on her feet. Every fold of her sex. He likes that she knows his body just as intimately. 

What she doesn't always know, though, is his compartmentalized mind. He's practiced at keeping secrets, guarding his thoughts. He tells people what he wants them to know. When he and Pam discuss this, he attributes it to his upbringing, to the path he's had to take being in the public eye, working with so many strangers. She doesn't take it personally. She knows things that his mother doesn't know, that his brother doesn't know, nor his sister, nor Dom. And they know things that she doesn't. That's just the way it is. Every relationship has its topography, and she has enough of him to be more than satisfied.

 

35

Shirley Manson is fucking hot. And Elijah has always liked older women. What's a decade between friends?

She's engaged, he's kinda. It doesn't much matter. When they meet at an eyewear photo shoot, he plays it as Remotely Interested and she plays it as Remotely Flattered. 

She watches him blow putt after putt at the swimming pool. "If you want to impress a Scots lass, you have to play a better game of golf," she says.

"I'm more skilled at other games," he replies.

When he returns home, he knows it's the beginning of the end. 

 

36 

He hasn't seen his 30th birthday, while Pam has. After four years, it's inevitable that the day should come when she wants to talk future.

Elijah is a present kind of guy. He bolts.

 

37

"You weren't ready," Dom tells him while sucking back a lungful of BC weed. "You won't be for a while."

"It still is sad though," Elijah replies. "I miss her. I regret hurting her."

"I know. If it's any consolation, you've got me as your sloppy second."

"You'll always be my sloppy second," Elijah smiles. 

"And we don't even have to be married," Dom grins.

 

38

Being single again isn't so hard after all. Not when he's got women like Malin Akerman wanting to bed him. "For such a small man, you cast a big shadow," she tells him. 

She's not his type, but he's too much of a gentleman to let her get so much as a whiff of that sentiment. Besides, they've got a film to complete. Truth be told, her flirtations are rather healing.

Still, they keep him on his game. He hasn't had to practice dissuasion without the excuse of a girlfriend for a long time.

"Maybe you like men," she tells him one night after a few too many drinks. Here we go again.

"Malin," he says kindly. "It's not that. I just don't want anyone right now, despite how inviting you're making it for me."

"Ohhh," she whines good-naturedly. "And I had so wanted to be your rebound."

 

39

He finds Katie sad. Even though they did _The Ice Storm_ together, he doesn't know her that well. Not like he did Tina. They didn't do any scenes together, only watched each other on set from time to time. 

"Remember what it was like back then, everything just starting to get big?" she reminisces with him and Anna over drinks one evening after _The Romantics_ wraps for the day. 

Neither he nor Anna has the heart to remind her that they were already seven years into the industry by 1995. It's more important that they listen to Katie because there's a wistfulness hanging over her.

"I remember that film for marking the point where I left being a child actor behind," Elijah responds. "All those themes of sexual exploration."

"I remember that film because you died," Anna says.

"Yeah, I don't think I've died since," Elijah reflects. "Oh, wait. I got fed to the wolves in _Sin City._ "

"What about Frodo?" Anna points out.

Elijah blows a string of smoke into the heated patio air. "Frodo fucking Lives, where have you been?"

Katie's half-listening. "We were so young," she reflects. "So full of hope."

Elijah reaches out, his hand circling her wrist. "We can always be full of hope," he tells her. "No matter who or what makes us think otherwise."

She covers his hand with her other one. He doesn't have kids, he doesn't understand, she thinks. "You're right, of course," she smiles.

 

40

"Elijah! Elijah! Will you sign my book? Can we have a picture together? Elijah, over here!"

He loves his fans. He doesn't always get the autograph business, but he gets that he's a performer and they are his bankroll. He is eternally grateful. His life has been blessed. So if the little piece of him they want is a picture or signature, so be it.

It's the same with the paparazzi. Make friends, not enemies. Play nice. Share.

He knows that one day he will need all the good will he can get. Because he has secrets, and nothing can stay hidden forever.

 

41

He hears about her injury through friends.

"What do you need?" he asks when he finally gets hold of her.

"Nothing," she tells him. "I'll be okay." She is such a soldier. She's so much like him.

"Pamela, there have to be medical costs."

In the end, he covers them, and then some. 

 

42

He attributes his need to herd to being home schooled.

"Let's go grab lunch," he'll text five people. "Let's have a barbecue at mine," he'll text a few days later. "Who's up for Radiohead/Gang of Four/Prince/Stevie Wonder?"

He's got a nice house. But he never wants to spend much time in it. Now that he's no longer with Pam, half the furniture has fled. The rooms are back to looking like a bachelor's pad.

"Art," Jason tells him. "Carpets. Otherwise, I hear dead people."

"That's your bloody echo," Dom retorts by way of demonstration. "Really, Lij. You need to cover the surfaces."

"Let's go grab Korean," Elijah says.

"MEAT!" they roar as one and are out the door.

 

43

At one time, he always assumed he'd be a father. 

Now he doesn't know. There's the business of a mother needing to be between Points A and C.

He thinks he has intimacy issues. Maybe not. Maybe they are focus issues. He's afraid raising a family would bore him. How fucking self-involved is that?

So he keeps moving through the ocean of his life, waiting for the timing to be right, for someone to come along and set their hook.

But only when he's ready.

 

44

His right hand is about as promiscuous as he gets these days.

 

45

"Really, dude. Megan Fox? Who'd you have to blow for that?" He executes a perfect layup of pop corn off Dom's head. 

"Her husband, ya wanker. Seems he liked my mouth."

"So what's she like?" 

"Kisses sweeter than wine," Dom replies.

"Megan fucking Fox," Elijah breathes enviously.

"You can still taste her on me if you want," Dom says, puckering up.

"Fack aff," Elijah replies, bulleting five more kernels Dom's way.

 

46

Bill's wedding is everything he'd want his own to be. 

If, that is.

"So why now, Bill?" Elijah asks during the dinner reception.

"Ah, for the wee one, truthfully. He's getting to that age."

Elijah looks around the room, at the cable knit of Bill's world. "You always knew where home was. I admire that."

"What are you saying?" Bill asks. "You're no different. And remember, I had twelve years on you."

"That's true," Elijah considers. He takes in the wine, the room, the fellowship here that warms him. He glances to where Dom is holding court with a few of their friends and family. "I don't think I have it in me to uproot like that one over there. I don't have that courage."

"You've travelled a different road. You were already where you needed to be." He grins. "Besides, Dom's always been a gypsy." 

"Only because we've made him that," Elijah says. 

"Aye, we have, that's true. He has fewer bags to pack. I know Dom's perfect world would be that we all live on a commune in New Zealand, milking goats and breeding spiders for their silk."

"It wasn't so long ago that I felt the same way," Elijah says, smiling at the sentiment. "Some days I still do."

"New Zealand is here," Billy says, touching his own heart, then Elijah's. "Always here."

 

47

Elijah has a lot of friends, but he's glad Dom's now around more often. Dom's his soul mate and he doesn't care who knows. No matter the time apart or the distances travelled, they are bound, sympatico. Both of them imprinted on each other in New Zealand, and like little ducklings, they will orbit each other for life. 

They share the same circle of low-profile friends. But when the cameras are around, they tend to travel in different packs. That's important. 

Otherwise, tongues might wag, and he doesn't want to go back there. 

 

48

DJing increases his interaction with people a hundredfold. 

"Are you, like, Elijah Wood?" he's constantly asked.

"I am," he smiles. He loves fucking with people's heads, doing something they least expect.

"You're good," they tell him. He suspects it's really star flattery because he knows that what he plays is often what-the-fuck music. That's okay. It's all part of his plan to convert the world one musicphile at a time. 

 

49

"You're becoming like Vig," Orlando tells him over lunch one day. "Danko Jones. The Beastie Boys. That Superman thing. Lots of variety. Next you'll be writing poems."

"Are you googling me?" Elijah asks, amazed that Orli knows any of this.

"I'm following your tweets, ya git."

"You? Twitter??"

Orlando looks suitably pleased with himself. "And Skype."

Elijah laughs. Skype's, like, so 2004.

"So what was the arc suit like?" Orlando asks.

 

50

"You should be proud of yourself," Viggo says over paella in Barcelona. "You're maturing well."

Elijah finishes chewing and wipes his mouth with the napkin. "What, like a fine wine? Or an old cheese?"

"Both," Viggo grins. "Sharp, smoky, well aged."

"I _am_ proud, if I can say that and still remain humble." 

Viggo nods. "Not many young men were as poised as you were at eighteen. Nor are they as comfortable with themselves at thirty-one."

"I noticed," Elijah says around another mouthful of food, "that you used the progressive tense, 'are maturing,' not 'matured.'"

Viggo smiles at Elijah's grasp of grammar. "And you know why."

"Because we continue to grow. You taught me that, you know."

"And I thought you weren't paying attention." 

Elijah laughs. "No you didn't. You knew back then I was studying you like a book."

Viggo laughs. "You seeing anyone?" he asks.

"Nope." Elijah knows he doesn't need to say anymore.

"How's Dom?"

"Good," Elijah smiles. "Dom's good."

 


End file.
